• Unlocking Cellphones Becomes Illegal Saturday – The Librarian of Congress, who determines exemptions to the DMCA, declared cell phone unlocking is illegal but set up a 90 day window before this ruling went into effect. The window closes Saturday. Unlock while it’s not yet a crime. • Belkin to buy Linksys router maker from
[Read More]

• Dell Said to Be in Buyout Talks With Private-Equity Firms – Bloomberg reports that Dell is talking to bankers about making a bid to take the company private. It wouldn’t be the first time Dell has looked at this option: Dell Considers Going Private, Again • The 2013 Best of CES Awards: CNET’s story
[Read More]

Twenty years ago today, a British software engineer had the honor of sending the very first text message. You may be delighted to know that it was grammatically correct and each of the two words sent was spelled correctly. On Dec. 3, 1992, 22-year old Neil Papworth sent the words “Merry Christmas” to a Vodafone
[Read More]

• Hppy bday: the text message is 20 years old today and Texting SMS pioneer Matti Makkonen 20 years on – The first text message was sent 20 years ago today. It said simply: “Merry Christmas”. • The Best (and Worst) of Mobile Connectivity – 85 percent of Americans own a cell phone, and a new
[Read More]

When New York artist Kyle M.F. Williams went looking for a bunch of old cell phones for an art project, he turned to a common source for such bulk purchases: eBay. As I wrote Tuesday, he wound up scoring 44 old Razr phones and, instead of gluing them to a scooter as originally planned, Williams
[Read More]